I experienced "sticker shock" already at my local bike shop comparing my 6 year old Brompton with a current similary spec counterpart model on the showroom floor (Bromptons seem to have doubled in price). As well as a visit to another bike shop that has Dahons on the floor with it's similar price expansion since I bought mine in 2003 & 2006-the Speed D7 has reached the approx. 500 dollar mark and the Curve hit approx. 600 US dollars. Inflation has seem to rear it's ugly head again. 15% reduction is a nice gesture, but the bikes (to be fair, not just Dahons) are already inflating far above the casual cyclist's comfort zone-and many other financially struggling people that can only formerly afford the mid-to-lower models that Dahon & the other major players once offered in the form of their basic no frills bicycles to and might forcibly opt to be without any bicycle at all.

Thanks to the very talented people at Tern for providing the competition.

Dahon surely had a fair amount of flab to trim out of their cost structure, since a number of the principles there over the last couple of years were planning to leave and set up a rival company.

"When man first set woman on two wheels with a pair of pedals, did he know, I wonder, that he had rent the veil of the harem in twain? A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Typewriter Girl, 1899.

"Every so often a bird gets up and flies some place it's drawn to. I don't suppose it could tell you why, but it does it anyway." Ian Hibell, 1934-2008